Happy Kerouacing

This evening the phrase "so earnest and tryful" kept coming up in my mind and I felt compelled to pull out "Scattered Poems" by Jack Kerouac. It's a small book of poetry that was gifted to me in high school when i believed that the perfect man was a combination of kerouac, walt whitman, cat stevens and einstein. I would read the tao te ching on the bleachers above the football field as the sun came up. I thought this world had no place for me and was absolutely determined to become a hermit and hideaway at Walden pond. i thought i new absolutely everything and could live life entirely on my own. what can i say. the naivete of youth. i also thought it would be a good idea to eat only seaweed and pez for a whole week. until i passed out. and that smoke signals were a fine way to communicate. until i lit the yard on fire.

a decade has passed. i am now 27. kerouac still makes my heart skip a beat. but i no longer think that seaweed and pez is the ultimate brain building diet. and i am not a hermit. and the older i get the more dependent and needy i am. it's true. in my country, independence is a family value and weakness is shameful. but the older i get the more i need people to grab my elbows and pull me up when i tumble downward. the more i need people to lovingly shake me sane when i am going bonkers. the more i need to rest in the palm of God's hand. the more i need, the more love is exchanged. and that is good.
here's to being needy. cheers!

This is my favorite Jack Kerouac poem:

Hymn

And when you showed me Brooklyn Bridge
in the morning,
Ah God,
And the people slipping on ice in the street,
twice,
twice,
two different people
came over, goin to work
so earnest and tryful,
clutching their pitiful
morning Daily News
slip on the ice & fall
both inside 5 minutes
and I cried I cried
That's when you taught me tears, Ah
God in the morning,
Ah Thee
And me leaning on the lamppost wiping
eyes,
eyes,
nobody's know I cried
or woulda cared anyway
but O I saw my father
and my granfather's mother
and the long lines of chairs
and tear-sitters and dead,
Ah me, I knew God You
had better plans than that
So whatever plan you have for me
Splitter of majesty
Make it short
brief
Make it snappy
bring me home to the Eternal Mother
today
At your service anyway,
(and until)